Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a firm statement to the Syrian elite this week, urging them to overthrow the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. “The longer you support the regime’s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor,” she advised.
Only now? Only after thousands of men, women, and children have been murdered, tens of thousands wounded, and countless homes destroyed by artillery shells has the Obama team finally shed its illusions about the Syrian regime?
A mere eleven months ago, when peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Dara and other cities were met with bullets, Secretary Clinton referred to Assad as a “reformer.” She was not alone. Last year, Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle visited Assad and declared him indispensable for a “constructive solution” to the Middle East’s problems. A leading German think tank, which advises the foreign ministry, called Assad a “modernizer.”
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Rare is the sceptered thug who does not attract fawning admiration from some in the free and democratic West. Fidel Castro was the darling of the smart set in the 1960s, and Che Guevara, one of his “wet work” assistants, adorns t-shirts worldwide to this day. Sean Penn is a shill for Hugo Chavez, and Robert Scheer had admiring things to say about Kim Il-Sung.
The more repressive and vicious the regime, the more some in the West will strain to find benign intentions in their leaders. One after another of the old Soviet general-secretaries was hailed, when he first ascended the greasy pole of Kremlin politics, as a “moderate.” Yuri Andropov, we were assured, loved American jazz, good Scotch, and “cynical political jokes with an anti-regime cast.” He went out of his way to meet with dissidents, we were advised. Perhaps he was drunk on Chivas Regal when he shot down civilian airliner KAL 007.
Similarly, when Syrian dictator Hafez Al-Assad (the butcher of Hama) died and was replaced by his son Bashar, the New York Times offered a highly sympathetic portrait of the “shy, young doctor.” The Times noted that expectations of the younger Assad were high, because, in the words of a member of the Syrian parliament, “he’s young and open and wants to give more liberty and democracy.”
Well, it may be churlish to begrudge people their optimism. But Assad has wielded absolute power in Syria for twelve years, and not a single reform has materialized. Quite the contrary. Even before the current bloodbath began, Syria was responsible for arming and protecting Hezbollah, assassinating Lebanese premier Rafik Al-Harriri, cooperating closely with Iran and North Korea, and sending terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans.
Derida called hospitals and schools "Total Institutions."Be that as it may some of the bloodiest tyrants of the past have been teachers and Drs. Che Guevera,PapaDoc Duvalier of Haiti and Dr. Assad come readily to mind.
Wait just a second! Does Charen mean to suggest that -- yet AGAIN -- the political left was 180% out of phase with the realities of life under a dictator?
Think of all the innocent, vulnerable victims a dictatorship gathers over decades. Why don't leftists care about them, as they claim to be the arbiters of compassion and benevolence to the downtrodden?
How come their soft spot for socialism is enough to encourage them to overlook the brutality of the tin pot leaders they embrace?
To think we used our military to help avoid a humanitarian crisis that didn't exist in Libya, while our leaders have thoroughly ignored a raging one in Syria.
As I said yesterday, it's because Foggy Bottom is addicted to the idea that peace without victory can be created out of whole cloth, and the Syrian people have inconveniently derailed that charade known as the "peace process".
And this admin. is probably more than a little miffed that Hezbollah has temporarily suspended shooting rockets into Tel Aviv pizza parlors. That's always good for a few thousand additional acres of "peace".
When it comes to defending liberty and freedom, the political left is thoroughly tone-deaf.
OK, let us concentrate on "defending liberty and freedom", but
of liberty and freedom of citizens of the USA,
ther freedom from being abused by the influx of "refugees",
freedom of debt, freedom of association.
And what kind of sectarian violence will happen after the removal
of this definitely bad person --- Assad ? Has Ms. Charen thought this through ?
Why is it to be our business --- to correct all the wrongs ?
The United States foreign policy has long supported nasty dictators around the world and then dumped them (abandoned is a better world) when it was expedient to do so. Make your own list. The Pinochet Regime in Chile is a good example to start with. A routine practice of this regime for many years was the systematic rape of most females who were arrested for political reasons. The same methods were also used by the Videla Regime in Argentina, another ugly bunch supported by the United States for a while. Check this out for yourself. There is documented evidence for this. So what's so special about Syria? For that matter, the United States supported a despotic regime in Egypt for decades, and than gave the thumbs down when the Egyptian people decided to throw the guy out. The main reason we supported the Egyptian dictator for so long is because he didn't cause any problems for our buddies the Israelis.
I posted on different article but perhaps more applicable here, I share again as the electorate must know about our buffoonish actions:
I was furious when I heard Hilary Clinton’s comments. Sure Syria may be a morass you don’t want to get involved in but its amateur hour again at the State Department.
Her statements absolutely discredit the US. No matter what happens, regardless who comes out the winner, we lose. She couldn’t be more incompetent. Just one example:
Business owners are told ‘the more you support a regime that is killing your brothers and sisters the more you stain your honor.’
Likely if businesses owners do anything in protest, being the most visible in society, they will be instantly killed. A minority or even majority may actually be Alawite and if the regime goes down, their heads will not be long on their necks. It’s obvious we are in a no win situation but our government somehow manages to guarantee the worse possible outcome regardless of who emerges victorious in Syria.
At best Clinton emotes naiveté and at worse a desire for cheap crass political grandstanding regardless of consequences. Once again, with amazing consistency the administration has engaged in ‘reset’, the new normal; alienate friends while broadcasting weakness to enemies.
They’ve blown it in Iraq, Egypt, Libya and now Syria.
Their only success is with the domestic audience, pulling the wool over an already blind media along with enough of the electorate to stand reasonable chance of re-election. If somehow a major war is avoided, Obama’s odds for reelection increase. Ironically that reelection brings four more years of catastrophic incompetence all but ensuring such a conflict occurs.
There is a relatively simple explanation for all of this: America's continued longing for royalty.
Americans do not particularly care for our politicians at the same time they swoon over foreign aristocrats, and for fairly simple reasons; aristocrats, unlike politicians, never need to seek re-election, and hence can appear to be universally magnanimous, urbane, and open-minded, even when they are nothing of the sort (hmm . . . sounds familiar.) They don't have to answer to anyone and can suppress virtually all negative publicity, so they never appear but in a good light. They are also assisted by charismatic go-betweens, like Queen Noor of Jordan, who alone has done more than anyone else to de-stigmatize the Arab dictatorships.
Hence, continued sympathy for dictators who pose for soft-focus personal interest interviews on television, while the horrific crimes they have committed are relegated to the back pages of unread newspapers. The media cannot be trusted to give a complete and unbiased view, because they sell to a general public that is hungry for the glamor of an aristocratic class the U.S. lacks.
This article makes highlights some very important aspects of our foreign policy. However, it would is a bit shallow. Why is it that Ronald Reagan refused to back Thatcher when she defended the Falklands in order to support the Argentinian dictators? Why did he allow Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons against Iraqis and Iranians and still send Donald Rumsfeld to support him as an ally? I strongly disagreed with this type of foreign policy then and I still do, but when even Reagan sees fit to get into bed with vicious criminals, maybe a deeper analysis is warranted, eh?
I believe it was Kissinger who said diplomacy is two games of chess, one above the table and one below.
Likely Reagan was assured Britain would win (on paper the task sounded tough but really, once you have the British Fleet mobilized and fully formed off the Falklands there wasn’t much doubt about the result).
Still Argentina was a non communist nation and US at the time did have communist threats in the region, so to openly ally with Britain could provide Argentina an opportunity to get in the fold with the anti-American nations. Such an alliance would weaken our position in other Latin American theaters. No need to risk this, so Reagan didn’t.
Same deal with Iraq and Israel. Iraq was a quasi ally as they were non-communist and very much a check against a resurgent Iranian enemy. There would be no value for the US alienating the Iraqi regime. But we still didn’t want Iraq to get nukes so behind the scenes Reagan was perfectly happy and quite tickled that the Israelis circumcised Saddam’s weenie nuke program.
The Reagan administration was adept, competent, professional and smart. They understood the world as it is and thus were masters of realpolitk. It’s not black and white, it’s not perfect nor pretty but neither is the world. Reagan’s team played both games, above and below the table as well as they could be played and America (and the world) benefited.
Compare Reagan’s sophistication and nuance to the previous Carter or the current administration’s dismal performances and it becomes devastatingly apparent why elections matter.
These people are not idiots. The Left's aim is absolute power: only that will allow their ideology to use living societies for their experiments with utopias. Subconsciously they respect everybody who's already got that power, from Stalin to Castro to Assad. They are much more dangerous than simply fools. The fools are average Americans bamboozled by them.
I think Barack Obama is a "useful idiot" who left-wing liberal people chose to represent them. Trouble is, liberals, when you choose people who aren't too bright or are inexperienced to represent you, it can go both ways...I think Romney's the brightest and most honest of the bunch we Republicans have got. Maybe he even knows how to get around tricky liberals. To use "Romney-speak," let's restore faith in our American system. Elites can be a tricky bunch, both Republican and Democrat, but don't let 'em fool you, America.
Thanks, Miss Charen. I can see how artistic people can become "useful idiots" to the politically ambitious. I really think we need to stop paying attention to the media that makes a profit out of artists' personal lives. It is such a cruel thing for an artist's life to be controlled by the media, but the media only do that because we "useful idiots" buy into it. We need to focus on making them better artists. Don't watch their movies, don't buy their books, etc. I bet they'd end up appreciating being left alone. For instance, I read that Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald, the old movie stars, were really in love with each other, but the studio who controlled Miss Macdonalds' life, would not allow them to marry because she was the top money-making star at the time, so the studio forced her to marry Gene Raymond instead, who was a homosexual (but nobody knew that, of course) for public relations (I guess Mr. Raymond was a bigger star than Mr. Eddy). Then, they had a highly publicized wedding and Jeanette Macdonald had a very unhappy life.
Just to add to my previous comment where I got something wrong. Jeanette Macdonald wanted to retire, marry Mr. Eddy and have children, but that would have been the end of some big studio profits. Artistic people have tough choices to make, too, you guys.
Certainly, Assad, like his father, could best improve the world by removing himself from it forthwith.
However, with regard to supporting those fighting against him, I would like to know they are. It doesn't seem that difficult a question to answer, though I must admit I've not tried it myself - but there are people we pay to find stuff like this out.
Egypt and Libya have not yet played out. What will they look like a year from now? Five years from now? We aren't Syrian, we're American. Whatever we seek in Syria should be something that makes the world safer for Americans - specifically for Americans. I prefer a foreign policy based on thinking rather than feeling.
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